For the past week, accolades and excitement have permeated the HIV advocacy space. The reaction is due to the March 28 release of the Biden Administration's proposed Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) budget, which seeks Congressional approval for increasing funding toward its Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. But the budget also allocates a mandatory,10-year, $9.8 billion investment in prevention efforts geared toward providing broader preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) access, an action that is deemed essential for reducing new HIV infections by at least 90% in less than 8 years.
But it raises the question; aside from Congressional approval, what will it take to really move the envelope out of the research lab and into communities most at risk?
Dr Chris Beyrer
"The science with PrEP keeps getting better and better…it really works at both the individual level to reduce risk if taken as prescribed…and at the public health level," Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, Desmond M. Tutu Professor of Public Health and Human Rights, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, told Medscape Medical News.
"But the way that our health system works and the way that it's failing to deliver, particularly to low-income working people and the uninsured, we actually have a widening of health disparity going in the wrong direction," he added.
